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((Work in Progress, liable to change at my will. Post ch00r feedbacks if ya want.))
FIRST CHAPTER!
~January 5th, 2089 C.E.
Good day sirs.
This is Colonel Everich, 31st Armored Infantry Regiment, stationed aboard the Command Carrier Terra. Enclosed is my report, as per request, of the activities of this ship and it's fleet in the last week.
We have arrived in orbit of Planet designation P3X-HORN/I-11, as part of operation Screeching Banshee. Ship personal count is 4,123. Of that, 3,349 is the 31st Marine Armored Infantry Regiment, and the remaining 774 is composed of ship crew, medical staff, technicians, general staff, etc.
Ship Status is green. Preparations have been made for main drop at Alpha site, codename Knuckle. Once perimeter is established on planet surface, Alpha base construction can commence. We are awaiting arrival of the Petraeus Command Carrier. Prototype, E-52X Mark II Mod I Legacy Suits are undergoing preparation for combat testing. Current plans call for outfitting of four squads, three personal per squad. E-501 Warrior suits, E-502 Scout suits are all status green. M61-A4 IPPR's have been reported effective by forward scout teams, at distances of up to 1000 meters against enemy units. M61 Carbines are proving similarly effective, at distances of up to 800 meters. IR-11 Marksman Rail Cannon's should, therefore, be capable of penetrating at roughly several miles. Reports are surfacing of M44 material weakness resulting in critical overheating and melting of weapons barrel, and internal power buffers from repeated firing. Target planet seems to have rendered our guidance capabilities null. Requesting more shipments of M61 and variants, as well as Transit tracking array technology (TTAT) to compensate.
Casualty report: 2.
One Private First Class Keith Evins, Rifleman, Warrior, has experienced broken spinal cord and multiple fractures along vertebrae. PFC Evins reportedly experienced traction mode. His squad proceeded to neutralize enemy and PFC Evins was evacuated to Transit. He is currently undergoing reconstructive surgery and is in stable condition. Expected full recovery by next week, and ready for redeployment several days later.
One Crew technician , Ensign Harro Jaito, minor concussion whilst attempting to service one E-501 Warrior suit. Slight malfunction led to sudden outstretching by several feet of Suit's arm, knocking Ensign Jaito to the ground. Expected Full recovery by the end of the week, two days excused sick absence from duty.
Douglas, Scott Everich, Colonel, 31st Marine Armored Infantry Regiment.
Colonel Everich tapped his silver-lined pen thoughtfully against his desk. It had been a gift from a friend of his back on Earth. The Colonel was a rather large-framed man in his fifties, creases and lines marking the flesh on his face; reminding him of his age. But mainly, this was the toll of responsibility and stress. He was in command of the Terra, and every man and woman on it's metallic decks was under his command. Everich himself was a decorated Marine, his olive-drab uniform lined with ribbons and medals from conflicts past. He had fought in numerous battles in his day, including the Japanese Cyber wars uprising of 2056, where several hundred well-organized terrorists had managed to gain access to military-grade Open-Air powered armor and went on a rampage through Tokyo, taking hold of many buildings and industrial complexes. The armor was old-school, first gen technology, but that didn't detract from it's lethality.
The man sighed, his heavy chest drooping. He rubbed the brim of his nose and tapped the pen once more. Then he placed the pen aside and stamped his rather meager report with his official stamp. The report was folded into an Envelope, sealed, and stamped. Finally, Everich clicked a button at his desk. The wall just in front of him, seemingly bare, suddenly contained a larger-than-life female. She appeared rather petite, though her demeanor was all-business. The blond haired, green eyed, young secretary looked up at the screen, somewhat surprised, and asked,
"Yes sir, what is it?"
"Elise, make sure this envelope makes it's way down to Comm. Tell those bureaucrats to make sure a copy get's sent to General Inderhausen on Earth."
"Right away, sir."
"And Elise...?", Everich stopped her before she could leave.
"Yes, sir?"
"Tell that damned private hiding under your desk to get back to work, or I'm going to rip him a fucking new one. Also, put your skirt back on or I'm docking your pay!"
The blond, startled and shocked and wondering how the hell her superior could see what she was doing when only her face was visible in the view-screen, turned red and squeaked, "Y-yes...s-sir".
The Colonel clicked off and made his way wearily to the right wall. He slipped the envelope into a slot in the hull, and a blue light lit up next to it, signaling that his report was sent successfully. As he sat back down, the Colonel decided that he had never really been good at writing long reports, and wasn't about to start. He resumed tapping the pen, thoughtfully. What the hell was going on these days? His crew was acting childish. It was as if they were a bunch of horny, frat, college students and not the professional soldiers they were supposed to be. Misconduct was running rampant on his ship, and the Colonel was getting damned tired of it. He decided to do a surprise inspection. He missed his youthful days as a private working the front lines with his only worries being staying alive and keeping to the good side of his sergeant. Ever since he had been promoted Colonel and given command of the Terra, life was nothing but damned paperwork and kissing ass to make sure his troops were well-supplied. And now, since the ship had arrived in orbit of Banshee, his crew was starting to slack with the relatively minor duties to be done. Sure, there was preparation for the main drop to the planet's surface, but really, all of that had been taken care of several days ago. Damned slackers, playing card games and drinking booze while on duty. And what's worse, some of them got the idea of sneaking in to the Female barracks and organizing orgies and parties and all sorts of nonsense unfitting of this ship. They needed a boot to the rear, he thought, getting on his coat and brimmed hat. And the good Colonel was just the one to deliver.
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A bundle of sheets and mattress was startled out of the second-level bunk of barracks room seven. The alarm was blaring. Lights were flashing, illuminating the ship's metallic hull an eerie red. The man sprawled out on the bunk finally managed to wrest free of his sheets and with a grumble, climbed out of bed. He hopped the short distance down, his bare feet hitting the metal floor with a light tap. He grunted.
This was Corporal Arthur Felix. His unusual last name earned him the call sign Felix, with was now displayed proudly in battle-faded, red ink across the right side of his Scout Suit's chest.
He had been one of the forward men assigned to scout out the Knuckle. This was their landing zone. After a short engagement with the enemy, during which one of the Warriors assigned to him, Private First Class Keith Evins, was injured, he was convinced of bad times in the near future. He had seen the enemy. He did not like the enemy. It was ugly, crude, and horrifying. Insect-like creatures, lumbering at roughly 10 feet high, dwarfing any armored soldier. Their tree trunk-like appendages sticking out of their bodies in multiples of two per row, some of them had claws. Their faces were the most horrid part. Scissor-like mandibles, snapping and drooling a thick, acidic purple ooze. Their large, globular eyes reflecting the warped, red sunlight. One could see themselves in their visual orbs, just before being torn to shreds. These things were powerful, too. capable of ripping through Plassteel, apparently. And stupid. Their bodies were covered with a natural, bug-like exoskeleton, and they came in a variety of shades between grey and black. At least, that was what had been observed so far. Like drones, they came after you. They did not care about death. They did not care about odds, or hazards. They did not know fear. Too stupid to comprehend anything but killing. Like zombies, they stalked the venomous landscape, coming after their target for all eternity, never resting, never stopping until they sunk their claws into ones suit and clawed out the fleshy innards. One of the field techs had reported that they communicated with some sort of pheromones. Very primitive, exactly like insects. The same tech also thought that perhaps they had communities, with different castes of insects, that the ones encountered were probably soldiers.
In fact, they had earned the nickname Ants by the forward teams, because that was what they looked and behaved like; giant ants. The name had quickly spread, and the whole ship was eager to go ant-slaying. Little did they know. The damned fools. The enemy seemed to be able to thrive quite nicely on the surface of Banshee. It had become known as Banshee due to the name of the operation. In fact, the planet appeared rather beautiful, though looks were deceiving. It's landscape was covered in some sand-like substance. Dunes of this sand that, due to the atmosphere, glassed over, like sheets of Plexiglas. A large portion of Banshee was also composed of huge oceans of methane, mercury, and other acidic gases and liquids. It sparkled a dark purple. During the day, which lasted about 43 hours, everything appeared purple and the sky seemed red. The clouds were of similar shades. The worst part was the gusts of wind, present all over the planet, apparently. This wind carried the sand-like stuff all over the place, changing the landscape on an almost daily basis as dunes and hills formed and reformed, glassing over, and then being torn apart by the wind, the cycle repeating endlessly. The night, consisting of a short 5 hours, was simply a darker version of the day, and temperatures plummeted to freezing extremes. Even the atmosphere was poison. Everything about Banshee made it inhospitable. A hell hole. No humans could survive without a full body, self-sufficient suit of some sort. Any piece of skin exposed to the atmosphere would freeze over in an instant. Yet the ants thrived here. They lived off of some sort of plant-like growth near the coasts. They could also generate energy directly from the sun. Perhaps they had food sources below the ground as well. Little was known about them. A lot of the missing blanks were filled in with probable guesses.
Corporal Felix was told he was stupid by some of the others. Here they were, armed to the teeth in the pinnacle and culmination of thousands of years of Human armor and weapon research. Capable of surviving any conditions, super soldiers, worried about some stupid ants. They were scary, sure. Yet, the forward teams hadn't reported any trouble. Very few of them had actually been spotted, and Evins was a casualty simply because they did not know what to expect. Yet, Felix was weary. He kept thinking that something could and would go wrong. None of it added up. These things behaved exactly like insects; were insects, for all he knew. There had to be entire colonies of them underground. Yet Brass had somehow conceived a 10 percent casualty rate to raise moral based on the data from their initial scouting drop. Bullshit.
The corporal stood, wearing nothing but his navy blue underwear. He was a muscular man, more of a runner than a body builder, of 6'1''. His head was nearly bald, in a military fashion. Only the stubble of his former dark blond hair remained. On his left arm was a tattoo. A serial number: 021945. These were used to keep track of soldiers, and consisted of a specialized ink that could be scanned and used for identification purposes. His grey eyes searched the room. It was empty. There was a party at one of the female barracks. Only the corporal and other vets had not attended. They frowned upon it. Slackers.
The alarm continued to whine, and Corporal Felix got on his ship fatigues, consisting of an olive-drab cover-all. This was a very comfortable attire. It was worn by personal aboard ships, was capable of keeping one cool or warm as needed, featured built in boots, and could be slipped on over nothing and removed quickly. This made it easy for soldiers to get in and out of their armored exoskeletons, without having to run around butt-naked all the time. The coveralls came in different colors. Orange for ship crew, olive drab for soldiers. Rank, specialization, and the like were all displayed via symbols patched onto the shoulders.
This done, the corporal headed off out into the hall way, making way to his platoons armor bay. Organization was more lose. Although everyone had a designated squad, the Officer in charge of the Platoon as well as others of rank could form squads of men as needed on the battlefield. In his case, Felix was in charge of a three man squad of scouts. Sometimes they were separated, sometimes they had additional body guards tagged on. During the drop, Evins and one other warrior were assigned to guard duty, protecting Corporal Felix and another, female scout.
As he made his way through the hall ways, another private came running past.
"Hey, where ya headed?", he asked.
"Armor bay, why?" Felix inquired.
"naa man, Everich is doing a surprise inspection, get down to the drop bay. He's having us all form up as he and his trusted crew of officers inspect the barracks. Shit, man, their going to bust up our fun."
This made the corporal agitated. He was about to chew out this slacker private, but he had disappeared around the corner. Apparently, he hadn't seen the rank insignia on Felix's shoulder. Felix was rather tough to pick on. He had great tonality, posture, and stature. All of this combined and his simple presence commanded respect and attention, even from some of the higher ranks. However, despite the appearances, Corporal Felix wasn't a strict, drill sergeant type. He didn't exactly follow protocol himself sometimes, and he rarely reprimanded privates beyond verbal abuse. They usually got the message.
Felix made haste to the a nearby elevator that would transport him to the Drop bay. The slight, mechanical whine of the elevator's gears working provided a background to the eerie silence of the small, rectangular room. A light traveled down the row of numbers, before stopping at D1. The double-layered doors slid open, and Corporal Arthur stepped out into a narrow hall way. As the hall gave way to the vast expanse of Drop Bay 1, Felix could see throngs of people in olive drab jumpsuits assembled, their collective chattering a stark contrast to the elevator. The room itself stretched upwards into a dark void, several similar hallways leading to elevators and other sections of the floor could be seen around the roughly square-shaped room. Various equipment, armor racks, computer terminals, and armory racks were set up.
More interesting, however, were the cone-shaped, white and grey structures set up around the room. They were large; easily big enough to fit whole platoons of fully armored men. These were connected with heaps of cable into a central generator, to which were also connected many smaller generators. These roughly triangle shaped structures, were field generators. They could be dropped via transit along with troops, and used as mobile energy stations for troopers armor and weapons. There were also armory dispensers that would make bureaucrats proud at their automated, computerized need-to-have dispensing capabilities.
"Hey, what the hell's going on?"
"I've got no clue", came Felix's reply. The man seemed somewhat dismayed, and would have walked off to ask someone else, but the intercom came on with a breath-taking beep.
"Line up with your respective units" a God-like voice echoed off of the metallic walls of Drop Bay 1.
"The Colonel says he's tired of our shit, want's us to shape up or ship out...in body bags" Another, younger private said, leaning in to Felix.
"Your shit, you mean. I've got nothing to do with the outbreak of misconduct past few days", Arthur replied. "What's your name, private?", he added. Felix wasn't about to be told by some runt fresh from boot camp when he himself was probably responsible for the mess.
The "runt" looked Felix up and down, noted his rank insignia, and broke off into a chuckle, "Ah, come on fellow, don't have to flaunt your rank around. We're all in the same boat."
Felix read his name stitched across the right breast pocket. Private Lars Nam. "Private Lars, I'll tell you this much: hope I don't catch you slacking when we drop. I won't tolerate that shit on the planet surface when it's my neck that's on the line."
With that, Felix walked off to his platoon, leaving the private deflated. He stalked off to his own unit and promptly engaged in banter with another private.
Arthur took position at attention. An elevated platform glided down. On it, Colonel Everich stood perched like a beast on the prowl. His hands behind his back, the old vet stepped onto the floor and walked evenly down the row of assembled men of 3rd Platoon, eying them like a hawk. His chest was weighed down with all manner of medals, and his face seemed as if chiseled from stone.
"Do you bastards know why you're here?", he demanded in a piercing, low voice that was carried into everyone's ears via echo.
A silence.
"I'll tell you why," he continued. "You miserable lot are here because you can't keep your pants zipped, your wits about you, and perform your duties like civilized marines."
He stopped in front of one man in particular, peering down at him from on high, burning a hole in the man with his gaze until he seemed to physically shrink into obscurity under the pressure. He stopped short as the Colonel continued his walk.
"You all are damned blessed. Spoiled rotten. Back in my day Powered Armor was restricted to specialized roles. It was expensive, it was bulky as hell, unreliable, and Plassteel was only a pet project in the labs. All of the battles I've been in, everything I've gone through. I only ever remember wearing a suit of armor three times, and that was when I served as a replacement to my squads Tank, or heavy weapons specialist."
He regarded another batch of faces at attention, as a blind man regards the world. "You all are damned lucky. Lot of good men died in my day the old fashioned way. You had your tactical vest, your helmet, your joint protection, and that was it. None of this fancy ass strength augmentation or artificial climate control. Hell, you had to heft everything and not a word out of ya in complaint."
He stopped. Then, "And yet, we got a lot done. We conquered and overcame everything the enemy could throw at us, determination, blood, sweat, tears. That was what won wars back in my day and my daddies day and my granddaddies day, and his daddies day. Now, all you have to do is be present. All you have to do is sit inside your cozy little tank shell and let the on-board feed you instructions. Move here, move there, got shot? Here's some syntec healing fluid, patch ya right up. Got a broken spinal column? No problem, traction mode and wait for back up."
The room responded with a resounding silence. One could hear a pin drop.
"Fuck that!", he added with emphasis.
"You sorry miserable lot are spoiled rotten by the tax payers and what do ya have to show for it? Dignity? Pride? Decency? Commitment to your duty? To hell with that, you all would rather have wild monkey sex and drink booze and play games behind your officers backs. Let me tell you all something. You aren't fooling anyone but yourselves. I just hope, for your sake and mine, that when we get down on the planet surface things don't come as a shock t-"
BOOM!!!
The ship rocked violently, the colonel was thrown to the ground, the mass of assembled soldiers tipped over like seaweed against a rock. The lights flickered on and off, on and off. Then they went off. It was dark, silent.
Then, "The FUCK is going on!", came a yell. The alarms began to blare, and a voice could be heard, with some difficulty, over the intercom. "All hands! level 1 battle stations, we've been hit by Surface fire, this is not a drill, repeat, this is not a dri-", yet Felix wasn't paying attention.
Another hit send the room bucking wildly, as the corporal struggled his way through the mass of people towards the elevator. Tremors reverberated throughout the ship, as the emergency lights came on. Medics struggled into the drop bay to tend to injuries.
"Everyone get to your armor bays, get to your battle stations-", Everich's penetrating voice was lost in the chaos. and so was he. No one had expected an attack with the ship's entire complement of Marines and a lot of it's crew lined up in one Drop Bay. No one. It damned near impossible to get anywhere. Officers were trying to herd people into transport elevators.
"Alert, hull breach, Sector 9, Alert, hull breach, Sector 9, alert, hull breach, Secto-" A somewhat cold sounding, female voice announced over and over; the ship's computer. Another earthquake, and Felix could feel his head slam against something hard, something metallic. He collapsed on the ground, his vision blurring. Faintly, as if from a distant place, Felix could see the officers, struggling valiantly to control the crowd from positions on top of various objects and equipment. His vision seemed to turn a hue of crimson red. With his hand, the corporal could feel something wet, something warm, covering his forehead and rolling down his face into his eyes in thick masses.
"Alert, hull breach, Sector 9, Alert..." He passed out.
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((That's all I got for now, more later. I am still working it out in my mind fully. See my next post for something interesting.))
